traveling with you, was the true hell of your Christian grandmother. It even looked like it. Pincers, and needles, and tubes and scissors. With its working imps, and gory damned ones. All of them paying out or receiving the punishment for human sins. It could seem the repository, the collection-place and bank, of all human evil. It often gave Strange that feeling.
Strange was not a religious man. Or at least, not a very religious man. Better to say, a poorly religious man. Who wasn’t much good at living up to it. But Strange believed in God. And believed he would pay someday for his lapses. And it was not too big a jump of the imagination for him to see the main lounge as the hell where he might someday be paying.
Like so many others, he carried a big reluctance to enter it or breathe its air, or even to touching the door handles that opened its doors. Out of a superstitious fear of contamination. But once you got past all that, it was remarkable how well it did and ran the things it was supposed to do and run. As no doubt hell did, too, Strange thought.
The extra-care unit was in one corner. It was cordoned off from the rest by curtain screens. Generally silence prevailed there. But all sorts of gruesome medical noises kept issuing from it. Enhanced perhaps by the silence. Liquid gurglings. Soft hissings of air. Louder air blasts. Peculiar tickings. Heavy breathing. No visitors were allowed in it.
If you wanted to carry the hell idea further, you could think of the extra-care unit as the seventh level of your grandma’s Christian hell, Strange often thought. The lowest. The worst of all.
If it had not been for Prell, Strange might never have gotten to know the lounge as well as he did. He spent a good part of every day in there with Prell, talking and laughing and trying to cheer him up. He doubted if he would have done as much for another man. Not in that lousy place. He hadn’t even bothered to look up Landers, Winch’s clerk, during the voyage. But Landers was a wartime volunteer. And Prell—like Winch—was from the old outfit.
Strange with his bad hand had preceded Winch by a week to the Naval base hospital at Efate in the New Hebrides. And when he left the company up in New Georgia, Winch to all appearances had been healthy and in good shape. Bobby Prell of course had preceded both of them by several weeks, when the New Georgia campaign was getting up to its peak of fighting.
Strange would not have put it past Winch to simply decide he had had enough combat, and simply have himself shipped out back to America. Winch was perfectly capable of it, and Strange was convinced he had enough pull to do it. If that was what he decided he wanted to do.
Gossip around the New Hebrides base hospital said that Winch had something wrong with his heart. Just as gossip in the hospital had it that Prell was going to lose one or both of his legs. But Winch did not look or act like a man who had had a heart attack, any more than Bobby Prell looked or acted like a man who was going to let them take off one or both of his legs.
Gossip around the hospital also had it that Prell was being recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor by the Division’s commander. But when Strange told this to Winch, Winch only snorted with outraged disgust. If anybody knew anything definite about Prell’s potential recommendation, it would be his own 1st/sgt, Winch. But Winch refused to admit he had heard about it. Prell himself had heard nothing about it, apparently. And Strange had felt that if he could get Winch to back-up the fact of the recommendation, it might do Prell a world of good.
It was not that Prell was depressed, or defeated, or suicidal. Or anything bad like that. That wasn’t Prell’s style, any more than it was Winch’s. Prell was just as mean and ornery as he’d ever been. He’d always been a stubborn, proud West Virginia hardhead, which was part of why Winch had never liked him. It was why Strange liked him.
But
Strange was not a religious man. Or at least, not a very religious man. Better to say, a poorly religious man. Who wasn’t much good at living up to it. But Strange believed in God. And believed he would pay someday for his lapses. And it was not too big a jump of the imagination for him to see the main lounge as the hell where he might someday be paying.
Like so many others, he carried a big reluctance to enter it or breathe its air, or even to touching the door handles that opened its doors. Out of a superstitious fear of contamination. But once you got past all that, it was remarkable how well it did and ran the things it was supposed to do and run. As no doubt hell did, too, Strange thought.
The extra-care unit was in one corner. It was cordoned off from the rest by curtain screens. Generally silence prevailed there. But all sorts of gruesome medical noises kept issuing from it. Enhanced perhaps by the silence. Liquid gurglings. Soft hissings of air. Louder air blasts. Peculiar tickings. Heavy breathing. No visitors were allowed in it.
If you wanted to carry the hell idea further, you could think of the extra-care unit as the seventh level of your grandma’s Christian hell, Strange often thought. The lowest. The worst of all.
If it had not been for Prell, Strange might never have gotten to know the lounge as well as he did. He spent a good part of every day in there with Prell, talking and laughing and trying to cheer him up. He doubted if he would have done as much for another man. Not in that lousy place. He hadn’t even bothered to look up Landers, Winch’s clerk, during the voyage. But Landers was a wartime volunteer. And Prell—like Winch—was from the old outfit.
Strange with his bad hand had preceded Winch by a week to the Naval base hospital at Efate in the New Hebrides. And when he left the company up in New Georgia, Winch to all appearances had been healthy and in good shape. Bobby Prell of course had preceded both of them by several weeks, when the New Georgia campaign was getting up to its peak of fighting.
Strange would not have put it past Winch to simply decide he had had enough combat, and simply have himself shipped out back to America. Winch was perfectly capable of it, and Strange was convinced he had enough pull to do it. If that was what he decided he wanted to do.
Gossip around the New Hebrides base hospital said that Winch had something wrong with his heart. Just as gossip in the hospital had it that Prell was going to lose one or both of his legs. But Winch did not look or act like a man who had had a heart attack, any more than Bobby Prell looked or acted like a man who was going to let them take off one or both of his legs.
Gossip around the hospital also had it that Prell was being recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor by the Division’s commander. But when Strange told this to Winch, Winch only snorted with outraged disgust. If anybody knew anything definite about Prell’s potential recommendation, it would be his own 1st/sgt, Winch. But Winch refused to admit he had heard about it. Prell himself had heard nothing about it, apparently. And Strange had felt that if he could get Winch to back-up the fact of the recommendation, it might do Prell a world of good.
It was not that Prell was depressed, or defeated, or suicidal. Or anything bad like that. That wasn’t Prell’s style, any more than it was Winch’s. Prell was just as mean and ornery as he’d ever been. He’d always been a stubborn, proud West Virginia hardhead, which was part of why Winch had never liked him. It was why Strange liked him.
But
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